I’m hoping to have more on this story soon, but in the meantime, ponder this.

Possession or transfer of a high capacity ammunition magazine, or one that could be “readily restored or converted to accept” more than 10 bullets, is a violation of D.C.’s gun law.

So I imagine that if the magazine waved around by David Gregory last Sunday was real, or even a disabled version of a real magazine, it is sitting on a desk someplace at the Meet The Press studio, with no one willing to pick it up.

Because to pick it up would be a potential violation. To transfer it to someone else might be another violation.

Who wants to be the one to turn that magazine over to anyone, even to the lawyers? And since there is no “lawyer exception” under the law, what lawyer would want it?

Assuming they all follow the law, I imagine a somewhat comical scene of people standing around looking at the magazine, but afraid to pick it up, even for a game of hot potato magazine.

Professor, good point! That would be an interesting bit of information to find out: exactly how did NBC come to have such an item in their possession, and how exactly did it wind up in the hands of the police, and what were the timelines on both?

Did NBC legal know that one or more of their employees were committing a crime on corporate property? What about management?

What other crimes have been knowingly committed by NBC personnel, and not reported to authorities?

It gets better. Not only have several people possessed the magazine (Gregory, the Prop Master, and probably a couple of stage hands) there has been a conspiracy to violate DC’s gun laws. There has been conversation between two or more persons (probably producers, writers, and even network executives) and there has been a concrete act in furtherance of the conspiracy. The penalty for conspiracy is often greater than the underlying crime.

Will anyone be prosecuted? If so, they will get a fifty dollar fine and a lecture to be more careful next time. The Enemy protects its own.

I realize this is a snarky post written to illustrate the absurdity of the law, but if the DC police department is truly actually conducting an investigation, wouldn’t they have already gone to the scene of the crime to confiscate the magazine as evidence? And if the magazine is no longer there, doesn’t that mean that someone carried the magazine out of the studio so a second crime has been committed?